Once were warriors

11 November 2002 — 11:00am

When James Cook and Joseph Banks returned to England in 1770 after their first South Pacific sea voyage, they took with them an array of flora, fauna and cultural artefacts from this newest of worlds. The booty included a collection of about 50 Australian Aboriginal spears that had belonged to the Gweagal people of Botany Bay.

Four of those spears - the only material reminders of the first meeting between Aborigines and Britons on the east coast - still exist. Few Australians have seen them.

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The spears are held in England at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University, England. On permanent loan from the university's Trinity College, they are subject to one of the many requests for the return of indigenous people's artefacts that beset museums around the world.

Archaeologists say that the collection is priceless as the spears are among the few artefacts traced to Cook's first voyage.

Some of the Gweagals' descendants still live in Sydney. One of them, Shayne Williams, has taken a softly-softly approach to negotiations with Trinity. He would like to see the collection back in Australia. However, he recognises the role Trinity has played in looking after it.

"We have to be open-minded," he says. "The reason these artefacts still exist is because they have been preserved by British museums."

The spears were collected by Banks during the Endeavour's six-day stay at Botany Bay. The primary purpose of the first of Cook's three epic voyages was to observe from Tahiti the transit of Venus across the sun. But botany was the predominant occupation of the voyage, now considered one of the most successful scientific explorations of its time.

The flora and fauna collections have been well studied but little is known about the everyday weapons, personal ornaments and articles used by the people of the South Pacific that were collected. Some artefacts may still be in private hands. Others have been lost.

Those held in museums around the world are often poorly documented. However, the provenance of the Australian spears is clear.

Sailing up the east coast, Cook and his crew reached Botany Bay in April 1770. In his journal Banks wrote that some of the Aborigines retreated into the bushes as the Endeavour approached. However, several warriors remained on the rocks, "threatening and menacing with their pikes and swords".

When Cook and his crewmen tried to land, two of the local men stood on the rocks, warning them off with spears and sticks. After about 15 minutes there was an exchange of musket fire and spears. One of the Aborigines was hurt; Cook's men were unscathed. The sailors went up the beach to an encampment. Convincing himself that it was abandoned, Banks "thought it no improper measure to take away with us all the lances which we could find about the houses, amounting to 40 or 50".

Of that cache, only four remain: two bone-tipped three-pronged spears, one bone-tipped four-pronged spear and a shaft with a single hardwood head. Cook gave the spears to his patron, John Montagu, First Lord of the Admiralty and Fourth Earl of Sandwich, who passed them on to Trinity.

The spears were never forgotten by the Gweagal people. "My mother always told me about them," says Williams. "They are a tangible part of our culture. They are the oldest Aboriginal artefacts to be taken from the mainland, so they also have a national significance for people right across the country."

The repatriation of large collections of human remains of indigenous peoples in many European and North American museums has been a controversial issue. Most curators now recognise the right of indigenous people to reclaim and bury ancestors. With the support of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the Australian Government has concentrated efforts on this rather than artefacts. Edinburgh University sent its collection of Australian indigenous remains back to this country in 2000. Earlier this year, London's Royal College of Surgeons announced that it would return pieces of hair and skin of Truganini, the so-called last traditional Tasmanian Aborigine, who died in 1876.

But what happens to non-human remains such as the Gweagal spears?

Williams believes Australia has to be realistic about its chances of getting many of these items back. "It was never my intention to ask for repatriation," he says. "I would like to get an exhibition up so that our elders can see the spears. Repatriation could take up to 10 years and that would be too long."

Trinity College council would make any final decision about the artefacts. Dr David McKitterick, head of Trinity's library, where the spears were on show for many years, explains that the need to educate people about different cultures by display would be set against the importance of returning the collection.

"The case for repatriating human remains is very strong," says McKitterick. "With artefacts, there is more sympathy for loans for exhibitions than repatriation ... These things were acquired, for all we know, in good faith. They are the only pieces [from Cook's journey] that have written documentation. It is a miracle, really, that we have that kind of documentation."

Last year the spears almost made it back home as part of a Sydney Harbour exhibition at the Australian Museum, but they proved beyond the museum's budget.

Dr Val Attenbrow, senior research scientist at the Australian Museum, says that the very existence of the spears, as some of the items Cook took back to England from Botany Bay, is exciting. "They are still in very good condition and people here have strong feelings about them," he explains.

For Williams the weapons represent Aboriginal resistance.

"People need to know we were not passive at the time of invasion," he concludes. "They need to know that Aboriginal resistance negated the idea that the continent was empty - negated the idea of terra nullius."